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Building Solidarity with Standing Rock

Posted on Tuesday, November 8th, 2016

Energy Transfers Partners is racing to finish the Dakota Access Pipeline. DAPL aims to complete as much of the pipeline as possible before their permits expire at the end of the year and the depth of winter comes. But no permitting has yet been issued to cross under the Missouri river at Lake Oahe in North Dakota and this has become a pressure point for the struggle.

Last week, water protectors set up a new encampment, the 1851 Treaty Camp, right in the pipeline’s path to block construction. The level of repression that was unleashed on water protectors, and protestors, has been unheard of since the Occupy movement was crushed and the National Guard and police attacked Black Lives Matter protestors in Baltimore and Ferguson.

In fact the level of violence has been much more extreme. Over 300 police officers in riot gear, 8 ATVs, 5 armored vehicles, 2 helicopters, and numerous military-grade humvees showed up to crush the resistance as they pushed them back to the main camps. 40 people were injured as crowd control sound drives, bean bags, rubber bullets, and batons were used against Native Americans and others in solidarity who are just trying to insure safe drinking water for future generations. The police and national guard showed their true colors in protecting oil corporations and not ordinary people. Some 141 people were arrested last week alone, 43 of them with felony charges. In the last couple weeks, hundreds of protectors have been arrested.

Given the escalating level of repression and the resistance of water protectors, solidarity with Standing Rock also continues to grow!

What you can do:

There are 4 main ways Standing Rock is currently asking for solidarity:

Help stop the media whiteout (the mainstream media isn’t covering Standing Rock), and

Support the struggle financially.

You can find out how to visit, support, and make financial donations to the main Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires) camp at Standing Rock here: www.OcetiSakowinCamp.org.

Help organize and attend meetings to discuss the struggle and how to build solidarity Standing Rock: The ISO has hosted 9 public meetings and report backs from our delegation to Standing Rock and brought out many people who are making the connections between the destructive nature of capitalism and the U.S. State, indigenous liberation, treaty rights, ecological justice, workers rights, and fighting against oppression and for socialism. At the RIT meeting in Rochester, New York, we had a panel of ISO members reporting back from Standing Rock, Chief Oren Lyons of the Onondaga Nation, and Peter Jemison of the Seneca Nation.